The concept of “civil society” has been much debated in recent decades. To its proponents, civil society is an essential ingredient of a vibrant democratic polity; to its critics, civil society is an anachronism, a term drawn from eighteenth-century political theory that has outlived its usefulness. Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann believes that civil society retains contemporary salience and analytic value, but he is also wary of theorizing that ignores the historical context in which civil society first took root. In Civil Society, a short volume, Hoffmann examines the development of the institutions and ideas of civil society across the “long nineteenth century,” and, in so doing, illuminates their ubiquity, paradoxes, and complex relationship to democracy.

Following in the footsteps of Alexis de Tocqueville, Hoffmann takes voluntary associations as a measure of civil society. The book thus opens with the Masonic lodges and literary societies of the late eighteenth century and closes with the working-class and sports clubs that emerged on the eve of World War I. Hoffmann sees meaningful continuities across this era, especially the Enlightenment idea that moral improvement, which could be attained through sociability and civic activism, was a necessary precondition for political engagement. Yet Civil Society also documents the rise of mass politics at the turn of the twentieth century. This rise led liberals such as Max Weber to question the moral and political significance of voluntary associations. From this perspective, the triumph of the associational ideal—and by extension, of civil society—was a hollow victory, one that validated both liberal principles (sociability, improvement, and civil rights) and liberal fears (the political mobilization of ethnicity, religion, and class). Hoffmann also corrects older literature on civil society, demonstrating, for example, that associational life could flourish in the face of a hostile state (as was the case in France after 1815) and in the absence of a strong middle class (as in nineteenth-century Hungary or Russia).

For readers of Civil Society, perhaps the most rewarding aspect of Hoffmann's book is his transnational approach—or, as he writes in the introduction, his search for “the astonishing history of entanglements and variations of ideas and practices” (7). Taking issue with the idea of American and British exceptionalism, Hoffmann sees a continuum of civil society across Europe and the Atlantic. His discussion of associational life in the mid nineteenth century, for example, thus moves effortlessly from Russian charitable societies to American veterans' associations and then from secret societies to German workers' clubs (46–50). Significantly, the Habsburg monarchy figures prominently in his analysis, and Hoffmann has profitably drawn on recent work by scholars such as Gary Cohen, Pieter Judson, Elena Mannová, Claire Nolte, and others to collapse the putative divide between Western Europe and the rest of the continent. At the same time, Hoffmann uses the case of Austria-Hungary to demonstrate the ways in which nationalism intersected with civil society. Rather than presenting the two as inimical (as many other scholars have done), Hoffmann rightly argues that nationalism was an integral part of the long-term democratization and politicization of civil society.

Given the ambitious geographic and chronological reach of this short book, it seems a bit unfair to point out omissions. Two nonetheless stand out. First, the book could present recent debates about civil society in greater detail. The theories of Jürgen Habermas and Hannah Arendt each receive just one hurried paragraph, which does justice to neither thinker, and more should be said about the revival of ideas about civil society in Central and Eastern Europe from the 1970s onward. Second, a clearer picture of the day-to-day workings of associations, with their written bylaws, countless meetings, and diverse memberships, would help readers imagine more fully the associations analyzed so clearly in Civil Society. But these are minor points, and Hoffmann has provided teachers and students alike with an intelligent and lucid introduction to key chapters in the history of civil society.